


Death Becomes Them

by Whynotitsfun



Series: TSC Prompt #110: To die will be an awfully big adventure [1]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Major Character Death With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:43:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5013997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whynotitsfun/pseuds/Whynotitsfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Canon Divergent-- Assumes that Jeremy Baker's death took place sometime before the events of episode 1x15 (Home).</p>
    </blockquote>





	Death Becomes Them

**Author's Note:**

> Canon Divergent-- Assumes that Jeremy Baker's death took place sometime before the events of episode 1x15 (Home).

                Miles stared at the clouds above, the sound of guns and screams echoing all around him. He honestly hadn’t expected it to come down to this. He’d figured that with Georgia on their side, the Republic would have eventually fallen. It’d have been just another bad memory—over and done with, just like all the rest of them.

                The last thing he’d expected was to be lying in the dirt with the hole the size of a baseball in his gut. It didn’t matter now… Whether the battle was won or lost, his part in this story was over. There’d be no resolution—neither revenge nor forgiveness were left for him now.

                He turned his head and saw people scrambling all around. Georgians and Militia alike were running to and fro. None of these men were concerned with the “us versus them” ideology of this war. Now it was just down to surviving.

                With what was left of his strength, he flopped his head over to view the other side of the field. He’d fallen at the edge of things in an attempt to chase down an escaping Militia soldier that had been sent to warn his comrades of the approaching Georgia army. He’d taken the kid down and then had fallen not ten feet away from him.

                He may have been just a hundred yards from the tree line. Eventually, the battle will have headed that way as both sides sought cover, but for now they were still; peaceful even. It was then that he saw a figure walking out of the trees towards him.

                He squinted his eyes to get a better look, but the figure disappeared from sight for just a moment, shrouded in mist. _Wait a second… where did that mist come from?_ He closed his eyes for a second and when he reopened them, the figure had reappeared, only this time it was far closer than it should have been, considering the steady pace at which it was moving.

                Miles’ vision began to blur he blinked rapidly to clear it, desperate to make out who was coming towards him. He was losing blood fast and couldn’t breathe. He knew he was almost gone when he could no longer feel the pain of his wound. One more long blink and the figure was standing over him, blocking out the sunlight.

                His eyes widened involuntarily when he realized who it was standing over him. “J-Jeremy?” Had he not been on the brink of depth, he’d have wept with relief. He had a chance—to say he was sorry for the way things went down… For leaving him to babysit Monroe when he couldn’t take it anymore; for training him to be monsters like them; for everything.

                Even when they’d been on different sides of this whole mess, Miles had still considered him a friend. And what a friend Jeremy had been. He was loyal to a fault, protecting his leader even when everyone knew he didn’t deserve protecting. And, when he’d captured them earlier in the year, he’d still talked to Miles as a friend—even when he’d been guilty of betraying Monroe and the Republic.

                Jeremy Baker didn’t respond. He just looked down at Miles, as if in pity, but there was also something else there that Miles couldn’t quite decipher. Then he smiled and reached out a hand. “Come on then. Time to go, Miles.”

                Miles heard the words clear as day, and he saw Jeremy’s mouth move, but it wrong somehow. It was like watching a movie with the sound track being a fraction of a second off, or watching a badly dubbed foreign film. He should have been terrified, but for some reason, he felt a peaceful warmth flow through him. He took the offered hand and let Jeremy pull him to his feet.

                He could feel again, and yet the hole in his stomach didn’t hurt. He looked down and saw that it was gone entirely. Before he could ask what the hell was happening, his old friend threw an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the horror of battle, towards the serenity of the woods.

                The day had just finished dawning when the fighting had broken out and it couldn’t have been that long before Miles had gotten shot, and yet while they walked that hundred yards, the sun rose high in the sky above them and then began to make it’s descent in what felt like just a few moments. As they reached the cover of the trees, night had once more fallen.

                Miles looked around in confusion. It was now full dark. IN the moonlight that managed to drift through the canopy, he could see several bodies of fallen soldiers strewn about, but the battle hadn’t made it this far. “What the hell just happened?” he asked.

                “Realistically? You died. You know—croaked, perished, went past your expiration date, went the way of the dodo, you’re extinct. You bit the big one; shuffled loose the mortal coil. The thing with the sky? Don’t ask me; it just happens sometimes. I haven’t found anyone to ask about it yet.” Jeremy took a seat on a large rock and waited for it to sink in.

                “I’m—I’m dead?” Jeremy nodded ever so slightly in response and grinned. Miles was slowly getting it, but it didn’t make sense. For one, if he was dead… “No. Not you?”

                “As a fucking doornail.” He shrugged, and then his brows furrowed as he seemed to contemplate his own answer. “You know, I never understood that expression. A doornail can’t be dead—it was never alive in the first place. And for that matter, what the fuck is a doornail? Just a nail that someone’s stuck into a door? I mean, we don’t call the ones in windows ‘windownails’ now do we?”

                He suddenly returned his focus to the very frightened and confused looking dead man before him.  “I’m rambling aren’t I?”

                Miles just nodded, his eyes wide.

                Jeremy shot to his feet. “Sorry. I don’t’ get a lot of company. Sometimes I forget to shut up.”

                Miles made a concentrated effort to force his jaw up—he was pretty sure he’d been gaping the entire time. “Um… So if you’re dead… I mean, when? How?” Georgia had a few guys on the inside and so did the rebels, but this was news to him. He’d have figured that the death of Monroe’s second in command wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

                “Seriously? I was serving a fucking lunatic. I’ll give you three guesses, but you’re only gonna need one.” He laughed as he said it, as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

                “Bass did this to you?”

                “Yep. Thought I was behind yet another assassination attempt and had his detail turn me into Swiss cheese.” He opened his coat and suddenly, Miles could see the bloodied holes that covered his chest and abdomen. They faded a few seconds later, as if Jeremy could make them appear and disappear again at will.

                The darkness around them had faded and instead of being surrounded by trees, Miles turned to see they were inside Independence Hall. “Woah! How did we get here?”

                He about lost his mind when Tom Neville of all people walled right through him. Had he been paying closer attention, he’d have seen the son of a bitch rubbing the back of his neck, shivering just a little. “And how did _he_ get back here and in Bass’ good graces?”

                “Showed up a few weeks back with a bunch of really good intel. He’s got Monroe convinced that he’d just fled to prove his loyalty by digging up dirt on Foster.” Jeremy narrowed his eyes at the retreating figure and from the looks of him, he wasn’t very happy about it. “As far as how? Dunno. I’m kind of tied here. Whenever I leave, I always end up back. I got a reprieve to yank you out of your body, but I guess whatever it is that’s keeping me here wanted you to come with me,” he continued, sounding not quite sure.

                When he started to walk, Miles was helpless to do more than follow him. They walked down one hall and then another. As they went, Jeremy paused here and there. Sometimes he yanked Miles through a door so he could knock papers off of a desk, or maybe he’d open a door just a little so he could slam it shut again.

                “Um, Jer… What are you doing?” Miles eventually asked.

                “Haunting.” He said it so innocently, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Miles had to laugh. There was a guard standing down at the end of the hallway that suddenly turned and looked around. He was visibly pale, as if he sensed that something wasn’t right here. “See, you’re a natural!” he grinned.

                Jeremy took a few minutes to explain to Miles this new un-life. For the most part, Jeremy never really saw anyone like him. Most of the people that died here or nearby just went away immediately. Sometimes one wouldn’t but they’d just walk around looking dazed for a few days before disappearing.

                “It gets creepy when time doesn’t stay constant. I’ve found that the more I interact with things around me, the more stable it is,” he said when Miles asked him why he insisted on fucking with the living. “I guess it’s nature’s way of making sure I do what ghosts are supposed to do.”

                They came to a stop that the end of the next hallway. Miles knew this door. He knew it so very well. He’d opened it a thousand times. “What are we doing here?” he asked.

                “What do you think? I have to do _something_ with my time. I’d get bored if all I did was spook the mooks and lackeys.”

                “So you fuck with Bass?” Miles didn’t feel too sure about the whole idea.

                “What part of eternity didn’t you quite get?” He was wearing one of those classic Jeremy grins—the ones he had when he was about to pull a prank. “Of course I fuck with Bass. It’s kinda fun too. He makes it so fucking easy.”

                “Why bother?”

                “Because I figure one of two things is eventually gonna happen,” he said as he put his hand on the door. “Either A) he’ll go completely bat shit crazy and I’ll get sweet revenge for his having killed me or B) he’ll snap out of it and will at least appreciate the effort of a good joke.”

                Miles considered this. The Bass of old would have seen the humor in a good haunting. On the other hand… The more the pictured it, the more he fell in line with the idea. He shook his head and chuckled. “When in Rome…”

                Jeremy opened the door wide with a bang and shoved Miles through into Bass’ quarters. He slammed it shut behind them. “Lucy, I’m home!” he called out.

                Sebastian Monroe was sitting at his desk with a drink in his hands. “No. Not again. Go away!” He looked absolutely tormented, which made Miles feel just a little bit giddy. This could be fun.

                Jeremy ignored the pleas for peace. “And now for tonight’s headliner. Straight to you from a field in the middle of Butt-Fuck Virginia, I bring to you, a very special guest.” Bass had already backed across the room and looked like he was about to have a heart attack. “Why don’t you all give a nice round of applause for Miles Matheson!”

                As soon as Miles’ name was on his lips, Jeremy reached out and slapped him on the shoulder. Miles knew the moment Bass could see him because his eyes suddenly welled up and he started to shake like a leaf.

                “Miles?”

 

                Sometime later, Jeremy and Miles passed through the door as if it was thin air. “I gotta tell you, that was a lot easier than I’d expected,” Miles said as they roamed the corridors once more.

                “Yeah, well. He always was a bit high strung,” Jeremy giggled. When Miles didn’t respond to the joke, he stopped and turned. “Too soon?”

                “Yeah, just a little.” Miles wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to laugh it off yet.

                They kept walking until they reached the old bell tower. There was little to do now other than sit around and wait. They knew the moment life in the Republic was altered forever. Someone ran out of Independence Hall crying out that the general was dead. “It’s finally over,” Miles murmured.

                They heard people shouting and talking on the floors beneath them. A guard had found him hanging from the rafters, the streaks from his tears still barely visible on his cheeks. The shout had gone out to fetch Neville. Who else could handle this situation?

                Across Philadelphia, the sound of a bell ringing could be heard. All who heard it stopped what they were doing and turned to face the Republic’s capital building. That bell had not been heard in one hundred eighty-one years and it would never be heard again.

                They watched the proceedings in silence. Now that it was finished, there was nothing to say really. Monroe was dead and the Republic would either die with him or it would evolve.

                “You guys are fucking dicks,” came a voice from behind them.

                Jeremy and Miles stared at one another in shock before both turning around. There he was, Sebastian Monroe himself, standing there with his neck at an odd angle. “You’re sideways dicks too… Come down here. Now.” His voice held all the authority that it once had, before he’d gone from respected leader to overly-emotional whack job.

                Miles pointed at his former best friend. “Um, we’re not sideways, Bass. You might wanna…”

                Monroe brought a hand up and felt his neck. “Oh. Yeah.” He cracked his neck, forcing it back into the proper position. “Wow, yeah. That’s so much better. Now where was I? Oh yeah. You’re fucking dicks!”

               

                Over the course of the next several days, people started to talk. And they started to get nervous whenever they entered Independence Hall. It began with the sound of indistinct shouting. And then there was a battle by unseen combatants.

                Rumors spread throughout Philly of the sound of a swords clashing night after night. The guards that spoke of it claimed that it went from one side of the building to the next and then back again. It would fade away, only to begin again.

                And then there was the incident in the kitchens…

_One morning the cook comes in to start her long and demanding day of feeding the entire senior staff. Everyone who is anyone is not only in town, but practically camping out at the capital during the day as the fighting and bickering begins over who would be the next ruler of the Republic._

_Rumors will spread that the poor women has walked in to see plates and cups flying across the room, some shattering as they hit some unseen obstacles several feet from the walls. She screams and flees the room, shrieking her official recognition. “I spent years hearing those two bicker! I’ll not put up with it from beyond the grave! I quit!”_

_Jeremy watches from his vantage point in the corner of the room, sitting atop a china cabinet. Miles and Monroe have been shouting accusations and obscenities nonstop for over a week—literally. Being dead, they haven’t taken so much as a five minute break._

_At some point they moved on from swordplay to throwing each and every dish they could find as missiles to emphasize their opposing points of view. Of course, Jeremy has already tried to leave repeatedly, but it seems that his punishment for his own sins is to be stuck with these two children until the end of time._

_They’re so busy trying to prove the other wrong that they hadn’t even paid attention to what is going on all around them. Big things are happening in Philly and they’re completely oblivious. He’s finally reached his wit’s end. He focuses all his energy and every remaining piece of ceramic in the room explodes to fragments and dust in an instant. “Enough!”_

_“Working out all your issues is all find and good, but did the two of you have to scare poor Martha half to death? Woman’s about as decent as you can get in this hell hole… And she always made those awesome little puff thingys for dessert.” Jeremy snaps._

_Both men freeze and turn to look at him. “Damn, Jeremy. You don’t have to yell. We’re standing right here.” Monroe says, looking absolutely confused as to their companion’s outrage._

_“I swear if you both weren’t already dead, I’d kill you myself.” Who knew that one could have a headache in the afterlife? “While the two of you were acting like two year olds, you were missing the big picture. You’re dead—they can’t see you. Don’t you want to know what’s going to happen to your miserable little pet project from hell?”_

               

                As the weeks turn into months, the rumors began to fade and those that talked about the haunting of Independence Hall said that the most violent and frightening of the incidents had come to an end. Many of those living and working around the building had theories about whom it was that restlessly roamed the halls of the capital building. Most assumed it was Monroe—tortured and insane by the betrayal of General Matheson and overcome with the news of his death. The fact that no one had known about that until weeks after Monroe’s suicide didn’t matter when it came to the forming of the urban legend.

                Things didn’t stop indefinitely. Every so often a guard would see something. Maybe a shadow would cross the hall when there’d been no obvious source. Maybe a door would slam shut or something would move or disappear, only to reappear in the wrong room. It left more than one soldier questioning the existence of the afterlife and Martha wasn’t the only one to resign over the hauntings.

               

                _They sit at various places across the room. Baker is, as usual sitting high as he can get—today, it’s on top of the grandfather clock. Miles is lying on the sofa looking bored. Monroe is sitting Indian style on his old desk, idly moving a pencil back and forth with his mind. He’s been working on this trick for the past several days (he thinks) and it’s starting to get on Miles’ nerves—this is why he’s still working so diligently at it, of course._

_Neville bursts in. He’s got a few underlings with him and he’s giving instructions. He’s got that shit eating grin on his face. The vote will happen in the morning. It’s just a formality, really. The entire Republic pretty much knows who will be named head of state now. How could he lose when he had the support of the strange visitor that brought power with him?_

_You know, come to think of it, he even looks like a snake when you squint.” Jeremy says as he contemplates whether or not to make the clock go off for no reason when Neville’s men head out of the room. “In case you were wondering, he pretty much had it in for you from the second you were officially named president.”_

_Monroe looks up from the pencil. “Yeah, got that Jer. Thanks.” He grumbles something about friends and heads up and the like._

_Over these past weeks, they’ve learned a lot. This Randall Flynn guy is leading Neville around and Neville thinks the guy hung the moon. Being dead, they are really good eavesdroppers. For one thing, they know now that the Rebels had a little helper elf on the inside._

_And that helper would now be in charge of the Republic in a matter of days. He orchestrated the bombing. He planted the idea of killing the family in Bass’ head. He paid someone to reach out to Miles and he paid someone else to kill the original contact. He also arranged for the shooting—the one with the assassin that was to make sure that Jeremy Baker was not injured. The assassin that was told to make sure to get as close to hitting the general as possible without injuring him._

_“We could always play with him,” Miles says, a wide and sadistic grin spreading across his face._

_Bass thinks about this. “Nah. Do you wanna spend eternity with Tom Neville? Cause I sure as hell don’t.”_

_“So what do you wanna do with him?” Jeremy asks._

_Bass thinks about this as he watches Neville sit down at HIS desk and pick up the pencil he’d been playing with. The vision of that pencil going right in the son of a bitch’s eye passes through his mind and for a second, Bass wonders if he could do it._

_Then the whole Neville haunting Independence Hall thing pops back up. If he wasn’t dead, it’d be sending shivers down his spine. “Fuck it. He wants it so bad, let him have it. I never wanted the damn thing in the first place.”_

_He stands up, his legs going right through the desk. He doesn’t even notice. He watches Neville for a few more moments before walking away, choosing to go right through him, rather than back up. He chuckles at the way Neville is shivering unconsciously. “Me? I’m gonna go use this whole invisible and no body thing like God intended.”_

_“Oh? How’s that?” Jeremy is now resting his chin on his hands and is kicking his feet against the clock, which makes a barely audible but completely annoying sound and has Neville looking up to locate the source of it._

_Bass points at the face of the clock. “It’s four o’clock. Julia Neville always takes a bath before supper…”_

_“You’re sick, you, know that?” Miles is shaking his head in disgust._

_“I’m dead, but I’m still a guy.”_

_Bass walks through the door and disappears. A good twenty minutes later, they hear a shriek coming from the other wing of the house, followed by some unintelligible and yet angry sounding shouts from the soon-to-be First Lady._

_“It’s gonna be a long afterlife,” Miles drawls as they watch Neville get up and cross the room, obviously intent on seeing what has happened. “But at least it won’t be boring…”_

**Author's Note:**

> PS: Even with the extension, I'm gonna be late on a lot of my prompts. Sorry folks, it couldn't be helped. I'll post them to the collection, although I'm sure that they may not be posted by The Orgy Armada


End file.
